Australian
Open Government Partnership
Civil Society Network

‘Good government’ coming soon?

by Peter Timmins

Four years ago then Prime Minister Tony Abbott told the nation “good government starts today” but that turned out badly, hopes rose with the arrival of Malcolm Turnbull in November that year but didn’t amount to much, and the words so far are yet to pass Scott Morrison’s lips.

So how do we rate?

On some ‘good government’ international indices– a few of these are dated-Australia does reasonably well, for example:

Scanlon Social Cohesion Survey- 2018 “Quality of government and politicians” third highest in “Problems facing Australia’ behind the Economy and Climate Change; “Trust in government to ‘do the right thing for the Australian people’ ‘almost always’ or ‘most of the time’ 30%; “The system ‘needs major change’ or ‘should be replaced’ 37%.

Lowy Institute Poll 2018 :62% say ‘Democracy is preferable to any other kind of government’; 20% say ‘In some circumstances, a non-democratic government can be preferable’; 15% say ‘For someone like me, it doesn’t matter what kind of government we have’. Only 47% of Australians aged 18–44 years of age say ‘Democracy is preferable to any other kind of government’.

There are many other dimensions of ‘good government’: vision, honesty, capacity to listen and lead, responsiveness, equity, and policies that address public priorities and deliver results efficiency and effectively.

With an election in May, ‘good government’ or at least improvements in areas that the surveys and polls identify coming soon? We live in hope.